With Go stopped and Fresh stale, Amazon’s attempts at brick-and-mortar grocery dominance continue to come up short.

Late last month, Amazon announced it would close its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh locations, claiming it failed to establish “a truly distinctive customer experience with the right economic model needed for large-scale expansion,” with plans to convert some locations to Whole Food Markets stores.

The closures weren’t exactly a surprise. The e-commerce giant has been making a push into brick-and-mortar grocery since its acquisition of Whole Foods in 2017, but the efforts beyond that deal haven’t exactly been fruitful. The Amazon Go and Fresh concepts, opened in 2018 and 2020, respectively, introduced consumers to Just Walk Out technology. Since then, they’ve had revamps, with locations being shuttered or left vacant, and Fresh stores even shifted away from the cashierless tech in 2024 in favor of Dash Carts.

With its new concepts, Amazon already faced an uphill battle in the crowded US grocery market, but many of the company’s strategies didn’t help. We asked industry experts why Amazon’s push into brick-and-mortar grocery failed, and what it says about the US grocery industry and the tight competition within it.

Keep reading here.—EC

When you’ve drained a plastic cylinder of the last drops of serum, what becomes of the bottle?

The answer to this question lies in extended producer responsibility laws, which make manufacturers responsible for the recyclability of the goods they produce. Container deposit laws are a good example of this: By monetarily incentivizing consumers to return empty bottles and cans, beverage companies have had to pay for the recycling of their products for over 50 years.

Over time, EPR laws and regulations have become much more stringent and broad, like California’s Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act and the European Union’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation. Both laws target single-use plastic packaging, which is the bedrock of the cosmetics and beauty industry, and require that it be entirely recyclable in the coming years.

But even though these laws aim to revolutionize how plastic packaging is made and recycled, unknowns remain. Though the EU and California laws have been on the books for a couple of years, the regulations don’t start to take effect until later this year and 2028, respectively. In the meantime, though, manufacturers are still waiting for specific guidelines on each law, and companies that annually produce millions or billions of plastic-packaged items are preparing to comply with laws that aren’t fully formed.

Keep reading here.—TC

It’s Presidents Day, and the federal holiday marks the first major sales event of the year. Amazon, Apple, Wayfair, and The Home Depot, to name just a few, are participating with steep discounts on a range of products. They are continuing a tradition going back to 1971 when Congress passed a law moving the holiday to a Monday on the basis that it would, among other things, create economic benefits such as increased sales.

Here’s what else is going on in retail this week:

In earnings: In arguably the biggest earnings event of the week, Walmart is reporting Q4 results on Thursday. The retail giant is notably in the midst of some big changes and milestones, including John Furner taking over as CEO and its market cap crossing the $1 trillion threshold. Investor confidence in the company is often attributed to its growing e-commerce business, which grew 27% globally in Q3. Other retail-related earnings this week include DoorDash on Wednesday and Wayfair on Thursday.

Keep reading here.—AV